


gonna let the rain pour

by mitch23k



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: F/F, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 03:41:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13158522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mitch23k/pseuds/mitch23k
Summary: Cassandra doesn't speak.But Stephanie Brown has a way with words.





	gonna let the rain pour

There was a storm, because there’s always a storm in Gotham. If the streets aren’t slick, citizens are confused. 

There was a storm, and Cassandra Cain was in a cot in the cave, and she was not speaking. 

Batman had tried getting her to talk. She could talk, she’d been practicing so hard with Oracle, he knew, but she would not speak. 

Alfred had made a gentle attempt, but after realizing her condition wasn’t going to change anytime soon, he’d simply adjusted her pillow for optimal comfort and gone about putting away medical supplies. 

Cassandra Cain did not speak.

If she did, she might request Oracle’s presence. But Oracle was on a mission with the Birds of Prey. So Cassandra was on her own.  
Or so she thought. 

“H-Hey,” a meek voice said. Cassandra spared a glance. 

“I heard you were hurt,” Spoiler continued, smoothly pulling off her mask and setting it on the cot. Cassandra’s fingertips buzzed. She wondered what it felt like. “And, uh, I mean, we’ve only met like twice, but...Robin couldn’t make it, so…”

Cassandra nodded at the foot of the cot.

Spoiler picked up the mask. “Oh, you want- alright, sure.” She handed it over. Cassandra moved it between her forefinger and her thumb. There was a name for this material, it was what her Batgirl uniform was made out of, but the word escaped her, as they so often did. 

“Latex,” Spoiler said, as if Cassandra’s thoughts had been vocalized. “It actually feels really weird on my face, like during patrol, but you know what they say, crimefighting is pain.” 

Spoiler talks fast, Batgirl noted. Usually, that would be a problem. Batgirl needed unusually slow speech to barely understand a person, but she was content with Spoiler’s voice. And anyway, her thoughts were focused on David Cain, and pain, pain pain pain, and darkness. It’s all she had been thinking of for three hours now, even though the antidote had been applied.

“Uh, so, fear toxin, huh? That sucks,” Spoiler said, then, for some reason, smacked herself. “Omigod, I sound so dumb, I’m sorry.”

Batgirl shook her head. Continue. 

“I’ve only got hit with it once, so, I don’t really - I mean, Ti- Robin, I mean, was with me, so he got me fixed up pretty quickly. Do you want to talk about it?”

Batgirl stared. 

Spoiler laughs, light and airy. Absently, Batgirl thinks that it sounds pretty. “Yeah, I figured you wouldn’t. So, uh, I’ll talk, instead? If that’s all right, I mean. My mom’s a nurse - oh, I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that - but sometimes distraction helps the patient. If that’s okay.”

Why, Batgirl wonders soundlessly, does she keep asking...if it’s okay? Batgirl did what she wanted. Batgirl didn’t need permission - usually. 

Batgirl nodded, so Spoiler talked. And talked. And talked. At one point, Batgirl recalls fondly, Batman swiveled around in his chair, fifteen feet away, and gave them both a look of pure astonishment before turning back around. 

Spoiler talks about her mother, and her father, and her pet goldfish from when she was seven (Goldie, of course) and how she overfed it to death because she loved it too much, and about Robin, and patrol, and school, and how she recently learned how to fishtail her own hair with her eyes closed. Batgirl didn’t know what that meant, but she hummed appreciatively, which Spoiler took as a sign to talk even more and louder. 

Slowly, ebbing, as raindrops echo through the cave, thoughts of Batgirl’s father and fear leave her mind and are replaced with trying to imagine a young Spoiler, gripping her mother’s leg and screaming that she doesn’t want to go to preschool. 

Batgirl knows Spoiler wasn’t wearing the uniform then, but she thinks it’s funny to imagine it. 

Spoiler was just finishing talking about how, for Halloween when she was ten, she’d been Robin, Nightwing’s version, and then when she was eleven, she’d been Batgirl, Oracle’s version, when Batgirl said, “Halloween?”

Spoiler jumped, seemingly having forgotten the younger girl was there. “Uh, it’s in October. You dress up - well, mostly kids do, but whatever - as like, a fictional character, or as a ghost, or something. And you go around and you get candy. It’s sorta fun, I guess.”

Spoiler is blushing. Batgirl can translate that easily enough: she’d been doing this Halloween thing fairly recently. 

Batgirl licks her lips, dry from disuse, and speaks again: “Want to.”

“You...want to go trick-or-treating?” Spoiler asks. “Uh, I mean, it’s April right now, but I guess that gives us a lot of time to get your costume together. What do you want to be?”

Batgirl can sense Batman’s chair turning again, looking at her. 

“Batgirl,” she says, and Spoiler laughs again. 

“That’s too easy,” the blonde counters.

“Spoiler,” she tries.

“Yes?”

“No...I will be.”

Spoiler scrunches up her nose, which Batgirl finds amusing. “You will be..oh! Omigod, you want to be me for Halloween?”

Batman is looking at her again. 

“Yes,” Batgirl answers. “You can be...me.”

“Omigod,” Spoiler says again. “Ohhhh, Robin’s not going to believe this! You want to dress up like me, little old Stephanie Brown, and-”

Spoiler stops. She looks terrified.

Batman isn't looking anymore. He already knew, Batgirl can tell. He always already knows. But that doesn’t matter to Spoiler, whose dark skin is rapidly turning ashy. 

Well. Spoiler had helped her get rid of her fear. The favor could be returned. 

Batgirl grabs her hand. “Cassandra. Cain.”

Batman doesn’t move, but Batgirl can sense his surprise. 

Stephanie Brown stares at her, shock evident. “Cassandra,” she manages. Her mouth opens and closes a few times, but she rights herself and manages a shaky grin. “Cassandra. That’s a nice name. Very pretty.”

“Stephanie...is pretty. Too.”

Alfred smiles at her. So does Stephanie. 

It’s Gotham, and it’s storming, and Cassandra was afraid, but Stephanie is an umbrella. 

Hmm, Cassandra thinks. Funny. 

She’ll have to tell Nightwing that joke.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in like an hour and changed perspective about three times, but i have so many early stephcass emotions. i love my dead gay daughters. 
> 
> also do you remember how dorky and nervous stephanie was before she died? im sobbing. 
> 
> so this is before stephanie is robin, obviously, and before cass fought shiva. enjoy!
> 
> also hmu on tumblr to talk about stephcass. please. my crops are dying. 
> 
> also yes. the lyrics are from umbrella. vintage rihanna is glorious and you can all fight me


End file.
